1. Technical Field
This invention relates to image understanding machines and, more particularly, to computer architectures capable of both arithmetic or iconic and symbolic processing of image data.
2. Description of Related Art
There exists a need for a computer system that is capable of both arithmetic or iconic and symbolic processing of image data which is designed specifically for use in computer vision research and analyses efforts. Such a system can be used in a variety of different applications such as for use in real time processing of data from radar, infrared and visible sensors in areas such as aircraft navigation and reconnaissance. Another application of such a machine would be as a development system for use in vision laboratories in the implementation and simulation of many computationally intensive algorithms.
Machines which are capable of operating on image data (as compared to merely arithmetic data) are referred to alternatively as image processors, vision computers, image understanding machines and the like. Image understanding machines are sometimes thought of as a higher level machine than an image processor which is typically referred to as a machine for enhancing and classifying images whereas an image understanding machine involves the automatic transformation of the image to symbolic form, effectively providing a high level description of the image in terms of objects, their attributes, and their relationship to other objects in the image. The present invention is directed to this latter type of machine (although it can do the lower level tasks as well) and shall be referred to as an image understanding machine (IUM).
It is generally recognized that a high level IUM must be capable of performing two basic types of computations: arithmetic or iconic processing and symbolic manipulation. Thus, it would be desirable to provide an IUM that is capable of performing a number of visual information processing algorithms such as those listed in the following Table I.